


(You Wil) Set The World On Fire

by lighthouseglow



Series: Nexus Archives [3]
Category: Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Adopted Sibling Relationship, Aggression, Anxiety Attacks, Anxiety Disorder, Asperger Syndrome, Awkward Romance, Biotic Shepard, Canon Character of Color, Canon LGBTQ Female Character, Canon LGBTQ Male Character, Character Development, Character Study, Crew as Family, Depression, Destroy Ending, Diary/Journal, Earthborn (Mass Effect), Everything Hurts, Families of Choice, Florida, Friends to Lovers, Friendship/Love, Gen, Hamilton References, Happy Ending, Male-Female Friendship, Mass Effect 2: Arrival, Mass Effect 3: Citadel, Mass Effect 3: Extended Cut, Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, Paragade (Mass Effect), Paragon Commander Shepard, Physical Disability, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Racism, Renegade Shepard (Mass Effect), Self-Discovery, Self-Hatred, Sole Survivor (Mass Effect), Survivor Guilt, War, Women in the Military, Working Out My Feelings Through Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-11
Updated: 2017-06-09
Packaged: 2018-03-17 07:56:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 23
Words: 18,022
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3521462
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lighthouseglow/pseuds/lighthouseglow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>…How d’you keep one of these? “Write down how you feel,” Stephanie, my therapist, said after Akuze. But isn’t this just me talking to myself? This journal? I’m pretty sure someone close to thirty doesn’t talk to themselves.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. White Rabbit

**Author's Note:**

> I don't own Mass Effect as a game franchise--it's all Bioware's of course--but the character of Lily Shepard is very much my own. I love writing for this fandom, as traumatizing as it can be occasionally, and this project is mostly for me as I play the series in real time.
> 
> And the Garrus in my life. I made a minor tweak to canon so that me and Jeff were friends pre- _Normandy_ because, as a disabled person, I hated the idea of _me_ saying, "I didn't realize you were sick."
> 
> Why are you even reading this? Go play the trilogy!
> 
> As is standard for these video game journals, I'm playing the game in real time so everything you read is, at base level, my actual reactions to plot developments.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _…How d’you keep one of these? “Write down how you feel,” Stephanie, my therapist, said after Akuze. But isn’t this just me talking to myself? This journal? I’m pretty sure someone close to thirty doesn’t talk to themselves._

Jeff, seriously, this shit’s password protected. Alenko, what the fuck d’you think you’re doing snooping through your CO’s stuff?! (This is just in case any of you come across it and no matter who the hell it is, get back to work. Please.)  
\--  
10 March 2183

How can it be March already? Easy to lose track of time out here… I like the dark, though, so much better than Florida’s intense heat. I admit, my old childhood fears about spaceships blowing up crossed my mind when I entered the Marines, but our teacher said those ancient, frightening days—the Challenger explosion in 1986, the Columbia in 2004, almost a hundred years ago—are behind us. We don’t have to worry about little things like transportation safety anymore.

…How d’you keep one of these? “Write down how you feel,” Stephanie, my therapist, said after Akuze. But isn’t this just me talking to myself? This journal? I’m pretty sure someone close to thirty doesn’t talk to themselves. Can’t open up to the crew—Joker shut down after we lost Williams last week and I don’t blame him. Jesus, why did I pick her? I should’ve known better, she was too young, she…could’ve been me once, a long time ago.

Fuck, I hate killing people. Getting them killed. I mean, you don’t think about it while you’re doing it, really, there’s this rush to stay alive and you sigh once one target is down, but then I have to come back to the _Normandy_ and think about it. Lily Shepard pulls the trigger, Lily Shepard calls all the shots, Lily is the one who has to live with the (really fucking stupid!!!!) choices she makes. You’d think at almost twenty-six I’d be making better decisions. (I was born in late July, not April—I was a street kid so I guess you can afford to get shit wrong as far as data is concerned.) I would’ve saved you both if I could have, Kaidan and Ashley, I would have…

…But it was either her or Kaidan and I’ve come to realize I can’t manage without Kaidan. Not romantically, God, I can’t afford to think like that. He’s loyal…in a different way than… Well, if I asked him to go into hell he’d do it for me, God knows why. He’s just that sort of person and…well, yes, I respect that in a man. I get the sense he wouldn’t follow me blindly either.

What are you, twelve? Liara brought me a sandwich, I should eat something… “Shepard, are you feeling alright?” Gentle, like my sister used to be. She’s still slightly awkward with me because I rejected her (well-intentioned) advances, but Ashley dying kind of makes all that seem petty now. “You really should eat…”

“Hey, Liara, I’m sorry if my rejecting you hurt your feelings. I…know what it’s like, from your perspective and…someday you’ll make someone who deserves you really happy. We can still be friends, you know.”

“You’re still worried about that? Forget about it, Lily, you can’t help the way you’re made as a human.”

“Sorry, I… With Williams and everything… I hate to hurt people. I didn’t take this job so I could hurt people.”

“I don’t think any of us did. May I…?”

“What?”

“Give you a hug? I think that’s the human expression, yes?” I saw her glance awkwardly at the floor of my quarters. “Forgive me, I don’t entirely understand your customs yet.”

“Of course,” I said, slipping out of my desk chair and letting her embrace me gently. “It’s not every day you get a hug from an asari, is it?” I laughed at the sheer stupidity of what I’d just said, but Liara was laughing too.

“No, no, it is not. Please eat your sandwich, Shepard.”

“Alright.” I sat down at my desk again and looked her in the eye. “Is Joker…?” _Ready to talk? His old self again? Still the Jeff I knew in school?_ “Is he eating?” Of course, I meant more than just his food intake and Liara seemed to understand. “He’s not… He’s not… He’s not talking to me and it hurts,” I whispered because I was ashamed of myself. Still am, sitting here and staring at my laptop screen.

“When he’s not piloting he’s at the coffee machine in the kitchen. He keeps saying he needs time if I try to talk about…”

“Why the fuck do they keep _doing_ that? If someone gets close to me emotionally, they either freeze up or they _die_. What disease am I carrying? Y-You’re the doctor, Liara…”

“Shepard, stay right here.” Liara has gotten a good sense for an anxiety attack. “I’m going to buzz Alenko and he’s going to fix you some tea.”

“Earth tea? Hot Earth tea?”

“Yes. Stay here. I’m going to turn on some music, okay? To calm you down.”

“White Rabbit by Collide, please, and if anyone complains tell them the commanding officer orders them to shut the fuck up. For now. Just for now.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

So I’m sitting here in my quarters, listening to an ancient band my crew has never heard of and waiting on my cup of tea and anti-anxiety medication. I don’t want to think about Akuze…


	2. Drunken Sailor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Up until recently, I thought he was just a smartass turian and I was fine with that opinion until he said, “I’ve never met anyone quite like you, Commander.”

12 March 2183

God, insomnia again… A lot of shit has happened since I last wrote—a politician fucked us over, the Council wouldn’t listen to me and our ship’s grounded until further notice. I have never been happier to see the _Normandy_ in my life until we left Feros. That was a mess. Nine civilian casualties--I shouldn’t keep track, but I do. Garrus, Kaidan and I all got debris in our hair and in our uniforms. (I could hear Garrus grumbling about it on the way to the bathroom, which made me smile and I don’t smile much these days.)

...Never mind, just got back from one of the Citadel’s clubs and Anderson agreed to help out. He looked more relaxed today than I’ve seen him in months—maybe it was the idea of fucking over the ambassador that chilled him out. I’m glad he’s finally gotten the chance to relax; if anyone deserves it, it’s him.

But then Kaidan came to see me tonight and now I’m nervous again, edgy. It’s taken me a long time and there are so many reasons why I shouldn’t, but I feel…something for Garrus. I do my best not to feel anything for any man at all, alien or otherwise. He pulled me aside yesterday and thanked me for making him part of my team and it just…made me see him differently. Up until recently, I thought he was just a smartass turian and I was fine with that opinion until he said, “I’ve never met anyone quite like you, Commander.” It…touched the vulnerable part of me I’ve shut off in myself since…puberty, probably. I knew better since… Well, you leave a pubescent girl with a computer in a chatroom and she picks things up. I was—I still am, a little bit—hurt by Jeff so I turned to the extranet for solace, got hurt and erased that side of myself completely. Not my lot, romance, as the Victorian novelists say. (Up until military training, Joker had dropped out of my life since middle school for a reason. We weren't _best_ friends--we didn't talk much, which is why he's been clueless about my hobbies--but...he was my only friend back then. I don’t want to talk about it.)

Garrus reminded me that I’m still vulnerable and I kind of hate him for it, right now, sitting here with Kaidan asleep next to me in my bed. Why did he have to be kind to me _now_ and not before Kaidan and I…? Romance is poisonous and I just don’t do it on principle. It’s stupid, it hurts you and it makes couples extremely unrealistic with regard to reality. I’m a navy girl. You can’t throw reality out the window. I mean, even if Kaidan and I do…whatever it is we’re doing, we’re still going to be two independent people at the end of the day, not two lovestruck idiots.

It was nice, though, not being alone in my quarters for once and I do love running my hands through his hair. He stayed for once and no one ever has… I told Garrus when we were camping on Feros that I only visited three places at school: the indoor pool, the library and the gym. Naturally, Lily Marie Shepard wasn’t given a second glance and she hung out with Jeff and Jeff was weird. Jeff was it. Jeff has been it for about thirteen years…until I met Kaidan. I feel…safe but conflicted with Kaidan and for some reason that I can’t name it breaks my heart.

By the way, if Jeff doesn’t give a shit about me romantically…why the hell does he keep trying to interrupt my attempts to relax? At this point, I don’t care but it’s still weird as hell. …Oh, oops. I can see my teeth marks on Kaidan’s shoulder—I hope he can forgive my…desire. Didn’t even know I was capable of it.

Better sleep, big day tomorrow. For the first time in my adult life I’m not sleeping by myself. I could get used to this.


	3. Believe That Planet Earth Turns Slowly

14 March 2183  
Current Location: Ilos

Fuck, of course my computer would malfunction out here and the MP3 player works just fine… Go figure. Lost my entry for today, so here we go _again_. First thing I did this morning was slip out of bed before Kaidan got up, dressed myself and marched down to Jeff’s seat on the bridge. “ This is totally off the record, but I was finally about to get some yesterday and _you_ just had to interrupt. I sat through your crushes in grade school so cut me some slack.”

“Well, didn’t you score last night anyway?” He was smirking and I wanted to kill him for all of ten seconds.

“Jeff, it’s the principle of the thing and my romantic life is something I’d rather keep to myself…and the guy I’m seeing.”

“Are you in love with Alenko?” I could tell he was asking the question as my former middle school ally.

  _I could love you if you’d let me, but since you won’t…_ “Excellent question, Jeff!” I said with false cheeriness and then, more thoughtfully, “I…don’t know, I have zero experience in this love thing. Have I _ever_ looked like a hopeless romantic to you?”

“No, ma’am.”

“Exactly.”

“…Clearly you need caffeine. Go get some coffee in the kitchen.”

“Is it fresh?”

“I think Tali made a pot, yeah.”

"Do we have the whipped cream?”

 “Lily, I know you so it’s standard order on this ship.”

“Make it so.”

“Lily, we _already have it_.”  
 

“I know,” I called to him as I headed downstairs to the kitchen. “I just love making Star Trek references.”  
 

“What’s Star Trek?” Garrus asked when I came into the kitchen.

 “A television show. Today they’re flat-screen, but a few centuries ago they were big boxes in human homes.”

“Humans are strange. Why would they sit at home and watch a box, Shepard?” I have yet to hear Vakarian use my first name like everyone else, but with him I almost like it. I like the way he says it.

"That was the entertainment back then, before colonization and safe hyperspace travel and d’you mind putting the whipped cream on my coffee, Garrus?” Maybe it was because of my first…passionate experience last night, but I caught the totally unintentional innuendo there and shut up. “The can hurts my fingers.”  
  

“Sure.” I passed him the can and there was an extremely awkward lull in the conversation. He passed me my mug, now with whipped cream all over it. “So, about Saren…” 

“Yeah?”

“Who’s gonna be the shore party?”  
 

“Me, naturally, and you and Kaidan. I would feel guilty if I left him here. You…”  
 

“Hm?” Garrus asked, picking at his slightly burnt pancakes.

“You’ve really, um, saved me a few times in the field. Yeah. Just thought I’d mention it.”

“You’re welcome, Shepard.”

I beat a hasty retreat before I made myself feel more uncomfortable than I already did. I haven’t gotten much time alone with Kaidan either, what with suiting up and landing and the geth… We’ve camped out by a broken elevator and I’ve exhausted myself trying to find the functional one. Poor Kaidan. He works so hard in combat that when we have down time he’s asleep in ten minutes. I never did like outdoor camping on Earth because of the mosquitoes, but Ilos thankfully doesn’t have that problem.

Garrus is still awake too—might as well try to pretend to be an extrovert. “Garrus, what happened to your face?”

“What happened to _your_ face, Shepard?” was the biting reply I got.

“Where I’m from—Florida, on Earth, where they used to launch the—”  
 

“I know _._ Contrary to the general bigoted human belief—what’s the word?—us aliens aren’t dumb. I didn’t get in C-Sec just because I can hit my targets, y’know.”  
 

 _Well, you can just go straight to turian hell for being a rude bastard._ I was about to give up talking to him at all. “I’m going to—”

“No, really, Shepard,” Garrus interrupted softly, “what happened to your face? The scar above your left eyebrow.”  
 

“Oh, just a…” Hitting the ground face first, blood in my mouth, Thomas’s detached arm sailing right through the air… God, just writing about it gives me painful flashbacks. “…Battle scar.”  
 

"What a coincidence, I have those too,” was the dry retort. He honestly reminds me of a lizard, a…komodo dragon. Yes. That’s it. One of those lizards in an Earth nature documentary—I survived on science documentaries back during basic training. A…human lizard. Wait, no, that’s unfair to Vakaryian. _Observe the turian in a hostile environment. Let’s see what happens when a human female approaches—oh, dear, it seems he wants her to back the hell off._ (I can’t picture David Attenborough cussing, but there you go.) _~~Bad news for the female.~~  
_  

Wait one second. Crossed out the last sentence, ignore that. So Garrus happens to resemble a lizard—that doesn’t make him any less of a person than me. Duh, Lily. He’s just a different species and God knows I hate prejudice in any form. Used to be rampant two hundred years ago in Florida—I still don’t get, even with my passion for history, twentieth century people—but the police forces no longer gun down black humans for stupid reasons like…I don’t know, looking at anybody, no matter the species. They passed laws. I mean, I can’t speak for the marginalized species and humans because I’m not them, but I can support them and equal rights for everyone in the galaxy. I’m proud for at least attempting to nip Williams’ poisonous racism in the bud—I guess we’ll never know if she could’ve been a better person with my mentoring.

 M, the older girl that looked after me because she felt it was right, always talked about how bad it was, back in the twenty-first when her great-great grandparents were growing up. “Of course they got angry,” she used to explain to bigoted people slowly, like you would a little kid. “They dealt with that racist bullshit every _single fucking_  day.” She’s my big sister; fuck the whole skin color thing because it’s stupid. I like to believe diverse species and races can be united and…

“Shepard, with all due respect, your hair’s a mess.”

“I know, Vakarian, and it’s going to stay a mess just to piss you off. I hate the helmet.”

“You assume too much and I’m sure you’ve heard that human phrase about assuming.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Dry recitation time. “Assuming makes an ass out of you and me.”

“What are you doing on the laptop?” he asked me just now.

“Work. Somebody’s got to keep a record for history’s sake.”

“You never stop, d’you, Shepard?” …Nope, I will not read too much into that, nope, nope, nope, no way, can’t afford to, no. Stupid girl.

I brushed my brown hair out of my face; I’d rather it stay a mess than have Garrus see it down instead of in a ponytail. Angry, defiant military bookworm—that’s my default state when I’m not in battle. Oh, and cinemaphile. That’s the twentieth-century word, anyway, I need to be more contemporary. Vidphile. There we go. “Damn right I don’t, Garrus.”

 “Well, you should, if only to get some goddamn sleep.”

I laughed darkly. “Vakarian, I don’t—fuck,” I muttered. My MP3 player suddenly decided to play that song from _Toy Story_. First film animated completely with a computer in history—still one of my favorites despite its obvious age.

 “…Uh…you don’t fuck?”  
 

“No, no, no, I mean… My MP3 player’s just acting up and…stuff. Y’know, I’m gonna go to bed.”

“…I win.”

“Go to hell.”

“Been there already.”  
 

“Me too, it’s not all that John Milton said it is.”  
 

 “Navy buddy?”  
 

“…Not exactly. Goodnight, Garrus.”

  Y’know, the glowing stuff on Ilos reminds me of fireflies back home; it’s the one peaceful aspect this planet has in spite of the geth.


	4. Drops of Jupiter

15 March 2183  
Current Location: Ilos

Still not breaking through Saren’s bunker, but since we decimated all the geth within range last night, we’re all taking a breather. For me, it’s sticking my earbuds in my ears and listening to the music from middle school. Oddly. Really old stuff, before-my-time electric guitar stuff, before we discovered music by people who weren’t human. I was poor, so M, Erin (my sister) and I obtained our music through…dubious means. M actually resurrected an ancient compact disc player when we were staying in someone’s abandoned house near the navy base. “What’s the point, M? They’ll just break.” I remember I was twelve—just turned twelve, so it must’ve been…let me calculate…July 23, 2169. My birthday. The house launchpad was baking in the heat, I remember that, and I was wearing ICT sneakers that M had filched from…somewhere. Even back then, I knew the Alliance navy was going to be my ticket to…the stars. Other places. Better ones than sleeping in somebody’s personal ship hangar. 

M was older than me by three or four years. Sixteen, I think. “I want to hear Kanye West on the old stereo system. Besides, this thing is an antique! Think of all the credits we could get if I restore this thing!”

“Who’s Kanye West?” Erin called, trying to get a signal into the Surf Galaxy Network—a local station--so she could listen to the news on the vid player we all shared. We were a family, even though M was black and my sister and I were white. Come to think of it, Erin doesn’t look much like me either—red hair, pale, freckled, green-eyed and always smiling in the two childhood photos I have of us. Still. Your personal family is your fucking family. Sorry, I just feel strongly about it. (Look, Stephanie! I’m compiling my psychological profile even if the Alliance Navy did that six months ago!)

“Don’t worry about it, sweetie. Anything about the riots on the TV?” M asked, plugging up the player in one of those…whatever the twenty-first century chargers were called. The player evidently had a different CD in one of the slots, because the song I’m listening to now, a song about stars and planets that was released all the way back in 2001, creaked out of the speakers.

“They shot a turian downtown this morning.”

“You don’t need to watch that stuff, Erin.”

“Yeah, I do! It’s fucking important! They’re being mean to the turians, just like in the 1960s with black people! We learned about it in school…when I _was_ still in school.”

”You had to leave so I could protect ya’ll!” M snapped, the oldest of us, standing up fiercely. “Erin Fiona Shepard, y’know what they’d do once they found out I’d lied on your registration paperwork? Stick us in one of those force-field rooms they’ve got at the jail and then you’d never see Lily or me again. And then you’d get a record that would follow you across the galaxy, no matter what system you visited.”

Erin started to sob and ran to M’s arms. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’ll be good so they don’t shoot me…”

“It’s not a matter of being good, hon. It’s a matter of escape. The Alliance navy is our only way out…at least yours. Take a civilian job, join the service, just get the hell out before Florida gets any worse. Both of ya’ll. When you grow up.”

“When I grow up, I want to be strong, read a lot, be just like you, M, and I want to marry an alien,” I said, having been tensely quiet during all this.

“Ewww!” Erin screeched. “You wanna kiss a _turian_?” (This is funny because she met a turian guy while she was helping program galaxy translators, they hit it off and she sent me an email to gush about him proposing to her at the Citadel. Seems like a nice guy. _I told him about the time we talked about kissing turians and he just laughed. He’s an ambassador. How’s the navy? Gone to Gagarin Station like you always wanted?_ )

“It’d be different. Besides, all the turians in the vids are badasses! It’d be cool to be married to a badass…but I want to be an explorer first.”

“Hey,” M said, looking over at me, “isn’t it somebody’s birthday?”

My fingers hurt. Sorry, I… When I listen to this song it takes me back. M got me a NASA suit that year—God knows how she got it—and Alien for our vid player. Erin and I never stopped playing the “Ripley and alien” game until we were fifteen.

For some reason I was always the alien, but I was damn good at scaring the shit out of her. Now I’m going to bed.


	5. Swift As The Coursing River

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “She’s not…” I heard Kaidan say. “Garrus, she’s not talking to us. She’s quoting vids again. Somethin’ about midgets with hairy feet from the planet of Middle Earth.”

16 March 2183  
Current Location: Ilos

Why the hell did Anderson let me take command? We are fucking lost looking for the archive. “We’ve been here before. We’re going in circles,” I moaned, half-kidding as I quoted The Lord of the Rings vids—yet more old classic vids from my childhood on the streets. I had the trilogy—the book, not the vids--in one huge book and the illustrations moved and it was even narrated for you; things are cooler now than they were in the twenty-first. We have vid stations, virtual reality experiences where you’re put inside the film you’re watching via an AI program developed in…Texas, I think. (They have no qualms about manhandling aliens during political protests there, either, in Texas. I guess the government just wants the tourist money—aliens will pay big money to fly to Earth—as long as those damn bastards give them their money and get the fuck off their lawn. But I’m a biotic solider, not a political activist. I never was the best at the politics game because injustice pisses me off that much. Calling the ambassador a son of a bitch wasn’t my best moment. Or I called him a bastard. Don’t remember.)

“I noticed,” Garrus said dryly.

“She’s not…” I heard Kaidan say. “Garrus, she’s not talking to us. She’s quoting vids again. Somethin’ about midgets with hairy feet from the planet of Middle Earth.”

“They’re called _hobbits_ , Alenko, get it right!” I snapped fiercely. “And Middle Earth is a swathe of territory, not a planet.”

“…You’re weird when you’re stressed…Commander.”

“Vakaryian, shut up and let me figure out our position.” I pressed a few buttons and the digital map on my omni-tool flickered to life. Blue, my favorite color. “…Y-Y-You’re not staring at my butt, are you?” I asked without looking at him. “’Cause the map says you’re right behind me.”

“Shepard, we’re in the field. I have to be.”

‘”Staring at my ass?!” I snarled, accidentally knocking my helmet against his chin as I whipped around. “Let me tell you, Garrus, I’m a feminist and I won’t be objectified by my subordinates!”

“Ow!”

“We must be swift as the coursing river,” I started singing under my breath. “With all the force of a great typhoon…”

“Oh, God, she’s losing it,” Alenko muttered to Garrus, who very intelligently backed away. He’s learning.

“Look, Commander, I didn’t mean it like that… What I said. I meant that I have to be right behind you as a precaution, not…so I can…can…can…”

“Look, whatever. We need a break before we look for Saren. Well, _I_ do after wandering around this fucking planet for two days!”

“…Should I tell her she was the one who got us lost?” I heard Garrus mutter to Kaidan.

“Not advised, soldier. I mean, you’re right and she’s made a shit-ton of mistakes, but…”

“I’ll _pretend_ ,” I said, sitting down and fumbling for this laptop in my N7 bag, “I didn’t hear that, _boys_.”

…Now I know how Captain Shang feels. Alright, this is it. We’re going in. See you on the other side.


	6. I Don't Really Care If I'm Strange

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Make sure he’s dead,” I told Garrus and he went without questioning me and shot Saren in the head. I heard the shot. Sorry, it just comes back in fragments.
> 
> …I’m apologizing to a piece of paper. Well, when the world has told you all your life that you don’t fucking matter, you apologize for even existing… Sorry, tangent.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm honestly humbled, pleased and flattered by the hits and kudos this novel is getting. (Garrus, have you just refreshed this two hundred and whatever times so I can actually have an ego?) I was _extremely_ nervous to do this at first but I'm happy people love it so much. Mass Effect has really made me more honest as a writer, a more mature person and I finally get to achieve my childhood dream of being in the navy _and_ being an astronaut.
> 
> But I love being able to _totally be myself_ in a video game, flaws and all. And I figured if Joker eventually gets healed physically, why couldn't I? It's not much of a stretch considering the technological advances in the games that CP could be cured...by the turians, ironically.

March 17, 2185  
Current Location: Omega

…I never thought I’d see this again. Ever. Um, things are…well…where do I start? Great, now I have to tell a story about myself, I hate those. There’s something I didn’t tell the navy—I’m certain Miranda doesn’t know either, and she says she knows everything about me. The Citadel hospital records were pretty much obliterated during our battle with Saren—we won, by the way, but Vakaryian really won on my behalf. Not hyperbole, just facts. There was a surreal moment when Saren smashed through several floors to his death and all I could think about was Pulp Fiction. (My mind goes weird places under fire.) Of course we made it out alive—complete with action vid heroics by yours truly. (I’m really kidding here—I’ve made too many mistakes to be the heroine everyone says I am. I try not to look at my Medal of Honor if I can help it just because I feel like I didn’t deserve it. Like a fake.)

Anyway, when I was recovering in the Citadel Hospital, I suddenly realized I’d lost my flash drive. My photos for therapy, my word processing documents—everything not relating to the military was on it and I was devastated. Shut down emotionally and just went through the motions—some days getting out of bed was fucking pointless. I kept taking three twenty milligram antidepressants every day and went on routine geth missions with my family—because my crew is that to me—as a means of recovering from…everything. “Make sure he’s dead,” I told Garrus and he went without questioning me and shot Saren in the head. I heard the shot. Sorry, it just comes back in fragments.

…I’m apologizing to a piece of paper. Well, when the world has told you all your life that you don’t fucking matter, you apologize for even existing… Sorry, tangent. Anyway. I don’t remember my parents at all because I was a premature baby, born with a disability like Jeff’s—spastic diplega cerebral palsy—and when I was old enough to remember anything, I was in a hospital bed surrounded by turian doctors. They found a cure when I was five—of course, I didn’t know that—and naturally humanity jumped on that one like they jumped at the cancer cure twenty years ago, greedily. I wasn’t the only test subject, before you brand me a special fucking snowflake who has lasers in her eyes, has a perfect (usually human) body and a voracious sex life or something like that in sci-fi literature. They wanted to see if the chronic disability crossed species lines—I don’t know any details other than that, I just know I wasn’t the only kid, much less the only human kid, in the ward. All I remember is arcade machines to entertain us when we got bored with being tested or cried too much. The scared human intern who had to pull tape off a tender incision on my leg while I screamed my fucking head off. Ow.

Books. I remember reading a lot of books. Anyway, I don’t know exact details but they cured me and I was in rehab until I was ten—I decided to leave and never go back. Erin was in the facility with me just because we were orphaned siblings; we would’ve died had M not been waiting for the transport shuttle by the hospital that day. Other details are irrelevant.  
I’m talking about this because M carried me that day like I carried Jeff when my _Normandy_ caught fire in April 2183. Somehow saving him brought that buried memory back as I shoved him into the escape pod. It could be a holdover from being sickly as a kid—balance issues, issues with my legs and having to learn to walk using robotics—but I lost my balance and just started falling, like in those childhood dreams where I’d dream about falling and then wake up in my hospital bed panting.

Except this time it was actually, you know, happening and twice as scary. Then I woke up in a hospital again. _Brain activity is off the charts--_

_Oh, God, I’m having nightmares again and Dr. F is going to test my blood again with a needle, please, please, please, not the needle--_

_Shepard, don’t try to move._

The lights were way too bright and I felt really, really dizzy and then there was fluid in my arm and I fell asleep. When I woke up again, it was—is—March 2185. I was forced to leave the facility due to an attack. There are things I don’t understand yet. Apparently, according to Taylor—I met him during my escape—I was in a coma for two years and declared missing in action. Dead. I probably looked like a piece of fried chicken when this…Cerebus organization brought me back to life; while I’m grateful, I still feel like a science experiment. I don’t trust ‘em, even if they did reunite me with Jeff and paid for a beautiful new ship if I agreed to help them. (We have huge showers and bathrooms!! Overwhelming. But I’ll write about that after I get all this down.)

“How many times did I have to do that in grade school?” I asked Jeff teasingly as we admired our new baby in the hangar. “Save Joker from himself, essentially? A thousand?”

“It wasn’t that often,” Joker muttered and punched me lightly on the elbow. “You remember that one time at lunch…”

“Oh, _clearly_.”

“Bringing the sarcasm back already. Glad you’re still you.”

“Yeah, I…hope so. I really fucking hope so, Joker.”

“We ought to give her a name,” he said, nodding at my new ship.

“Well, since I don’t like change very much…ironically, considering all that’s happened,” I answered, “let’s keep her name the way it is. Anderson might snipe me otherwise and besides, World War II history is one of my passions.”

“Hey, Commander, your scar’s gone, the one above your left eye.”

“Just that one, though. I still have plenty, physical and…” I sighed, “otherwise.”

“We can rebuild your home, you know.”

“That’s the plan.”

“Oh, about when we were kids…I owe ya,” he said as we walked over to the _Normandy_ SR2. “Don’t worry,” he said as I scrunched up my nose the way I do when I imagine something gross, “it’s not beer.” The airlock door slid open—just like old--

No, I can’t quote Garrus right now, although he will enter stylishly from the left soon enough. Anyway, as I was _saying_ before my mind veered somewhere it shouldn’t, the airlock door opened and Jeff nodded at a box just inside the ship. “Your laptop was burnt to a crisp two years ago, so I got ya a new one. Think of it as a super late birthday present. You _are_ twenty-seven now, right?”  
In all my childhood and adolescence, up until today, I never had a new device fresh out of the box. I’d never had anything new at all before. “Thank you!!!” I squeaked, giving him an impulsive and purely friendly hug. “I always had to use the café ones because we were too poor to have one…” I ran my fingers over the keyboard.

“I didn’t know Commander Lily Marie Shepard was secretly still twelve years old.”

“Keep that up and I might assign you to engineering,” I laughed.

Stopping here because I need a nap…and I’m not exactly in a safe area on Omega. Plus, certain people aren’t here so I can write about things without my usual awkwardness. But Garrus would tell me to go the hell to bed, so…tomorrow I’ll tell you the rest.

But this laptop means more to me than any fucking Medal of Honor.


	7. Angel With A Shotgun

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “The velociraptor-cat hybrid with the pole up his ass will be joining you shortly, Jeff. I was just giving you a warning. Make sure he doesn’t do anything stupid, like follow me or break our precious baby or anything. Understood? Send Taylor as a replacement.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's super, super easy for me to write Garrus--personal experience does pay off. ^_^

 

18 March 2185  
Current Location: Omega

Being this…hyper before missions is bad for me. I don’t even know where the joy came from—oh, hell, yeah, I do, can’t lie about it. I’m actually thirsty for water this morning. I slept hunched against a crate last night—I’m used to sleeping in weird places. Anyway, so our Cerebus contact, who I don’t trust as far as I can throw him, insisted that Jacob Taylor (there’s this twenty-first century trashy teen novel his name reminds me of and since that book leaves a bad taste in my mouth—Taylor seems trustworthy enough himself, though—I’m gonna refer to him as Taylor here) and Miranda Lawson along. I don’t trust Lawson either—she’s cold. Cocky. Won’t say much. I have the same ambivalent feelings toward her that I did toward the popular clique at grade school, so it’s not jealousy. She reminds me of H.C. Andersen’s Snow Queen honestly—cold and without remorse. Black hair, about my height and I can’t place her accent. English or Australian. She won’t get my trust unless she earns it; if Taylor could and she really wants to, it’s her call. I don’t befriend people unless I can trust them implicitly.

Our first move is to gather recruits—Jeff says everyone’s basically split, like the Fellowship at the end of The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R. Tolkien, except I have no Ring of Power. Well, does past emotional trauma and constant anxiety, depression and obsessive compulsive disorder count? I didn’t develop rituals until after the attack on the Citadel. Constantly bargaining with American Bible Belt God not to take what little happiness I’ve got away because he took Thomas and Michael and Rachel and Alexander away on Akuze… Where I grew up, they’d say…oh, I don’t know, that God was testing me or he has some magical blueprints in the sky that I don’t know about yet. There’s a reason M went out of her way to not feed Erin and I at soup kitchens affiliated with conservative evangelical churches—we were three scared kids and all of us were tired of being told we needed Jesus. I only feel safe living by Matthew 25. The Song of Solomon is pretty in places, but it seems like it’s about sex. Carnal, hungry, desperate, passionate sex.

Sorry, I didn’t mean to talk about Christianity, but I figure God knows my intentions and knows I…try to spread the basic message subtly. That’s on one of my better days; on the bad days, I’m praying three times in a row and crossing myself and it boils down to, “God, don’t let Garrus die. Don’t let me die. Keep us both safe, healthy and happy and bring him back or I will be forced to kill you .”

I am either really lucky or…well, we had to go to Omega first and find this guy, Archangel. (Jeff corrected me on my pronunciation before we docked—I’ve only read it in books so I’ve been saying it wrong all these years. Jeff said it’s reader disease and I told him to shut up.) Pretty seedy, this planet—like something out of a Scorsese vid. Reminds me of Miami back home—there’s a huge financial gap between the rich and poor and it’s really sad. Pulsing trance music in the streets. I was told to go to Afterlife first, which—oh, _joy—_ was a club. First thing you see once you muscle your way past the krogan bouncer is, naturally, female strippers. Smoke everywhere. I could barely see the bar when I impulsively marched up and ordered a drink.

 I turned to Zaeed and Taylor behind me. (Zaeed, who I’ll talk about eventually, looks like the hunter in _Jurassic Park_ ; I keep expecting him to call me a clever girl.) “You guys want anything?” You can’t take the Deep South out of the girl, even in a different star system; I’m grateful I just have a generic American accent.

“No, ma’am, we’re cool,” Taylor piped up. “We’ll go look for that girl, our contact, whatever her name is.”  
 

“I’ll be two minutes and I’ll catch up with you guys.”

“Yes, ma’am.” I lost them in the pulse of the club and turned to get my drink. I saw plenty of clubs growing up, but this was the first time I’d been in one. My preference is a virgin Bloody Mary, but I decided to try whatever they had. Blue stuff, tasted like…bread soaked in water and I backed away coughing.  
 

“Another one,” I said and the bartender looked at me like I was crazy, but poured me another shot. I drank all of it, then went after my squadmates with a nasty taste in my mouth. (Sorry, Stephanie, I know I’m not a drinker and not supposed to drink ‘cause of the meds, but I needed at least two shots.) I forget her name—it’s early—but our asari contact said we’d get more information from the mercenary recruiters. I surmised Archangel was a thorn in everyone’s side.  
 

“What can you tell me about him?”

“He’s a pain in the ass, a turian and very dangerous.”

 _Garrus?! Well, he’s always been a survivor and tough as nails… He disappeared after I was declared—Of course, of course, of course!!!!!_ “Where’s Garrus Vakaryian, asshole?” I hissed, left hand on my pistol. (I’m left-handed, just throwing that out there. I have scars on my left cheek now.)

"What are you talking about? You’ll have to freelance with us if you want Archangel,” the krogan growled.

“I’ll take as many credits as you can provide. I don’t care about price; pay us what you like. Sign us up.”

“You’re dealing with a dragon, hon, hope you know that.”

“I love dragons.”

 I’ve never been so nervous (other than Akuze and fighting Saren) as I was when we were driven out to the rendezvous point, an abandoned apartment complex. Looked like the places M, Erin and I used to live in. When we finally met up with the troops and I interrogated them, the captain was trying to repair a ship to fire on my…I mean… on Garrus. Unfortunately for the sergeant, I was a street kid, he was planning to kill someone I love and there was a knife on the floor just off to the side. Desperate times, desperate measures.  
  

"You’re working too hard, man,” I said coolly as I slid the knife into his back; he fell forward and hit the floor with a crunch. I could see where his head had split open; there was blood and I could see the white bone of his skull. Normally, that would make me ill, but I aimed my pistol at the rest of the mercenaries.

"Okay, which one of you motherfucking bastards is next on my list? Taylor, Zaeed…please go medieval on their ass, which translates to kill them. I set my laser from stun to kill. Fire!”

“Wait, what laser?”  
 

The guy who asked was dead in two seconds and then _they_ started firing on us. Sounds like an action vid, doesn’t it? I like to think I did Samuel L. Jackson and Buzz Lightyear proud.  
 

“Shepard? I thought you were dead,” echoed in the space and…okay, yeah, my heart leapt and all that other cliché bullshit that I’d really rather not focus on. I would know that blue armor anywhere in the galaxy and beyond it.

“Hi, Garrus. Let’s kick some ass…just like old times.”

 Music swelled and…I’m just kidding. I don’t remember much else except feeling like I could take on all the Collectors in the world with… What was I talking about? Sorry, right. We fought our way out, I did what I do best—his words, not mine—and got him safely home again. I always have loved stories where the girl saves the guy.  
  

Yeah, right, um, for whatever reason he likes hiding out in the main battery. I am going to be an adult about this, I am going to be an adult and mature and professional and he’s home, he’s home, he’s home!!!!!!! (That enough exclamation points for you?) Miranda could say I was a terrible commanding officer, Saren could come back again as a zombie, the sun could explode and I would be totally okay. Gleeful. 

Ahem. My personal assistant Kelly was…well…voicing my f… Oh, fuck it. “I just want to put my arms around Garrus and tell him everything will be okay. …Lily, are you…blushing?”

“N-N-N-No, it’s just from exertion.”

  “Lily, your face didn’t look like it was burning until—”  
 

"I know exactly what you mean, Kelly,” I said, suppressing a wistful, girlish (ew, ew, ew, ew, what is he _doing_ to me?!!!) sigh. “ _Exactly_ what you mean.” I sprinted to the bathroom, grabbed a washcloth and doused my burning face. I am going to _kill him_ one of these days…although, the quickest way to do that would be to drag him through the Omega slums because there’s a plague decimating the population right now. It’s  The Last Man by Mary Shelley all over again. (There’s a reason I spent sixty credits on an antique hardcover edition from the early twenty-first. Caspar David Friedrich paintings. A wonderful, bookish, intelligent man. His badass wife. Real love, not romance. Fighting against a war, a pandemic the odds when everyone you love is dying. I’m glad those 1960s people rediscovered it again for us in the future. A lot of people have been reading it lately.) There was a woman yelling at the guard when we  turned up, trying to get her stuff before looters did.

 “Quarantined, sister,” the turian guard snapped at me. “I can’t let you in.”

“I’m Alliance Navy, sir. Looking for the salarian doctor, Professor Mordin—”

“Uh, Shepard, you do know this plague kills turians, right?” Garrus muttered somewhere within the vicinity of my neck. “A plague that kills turians,” he muttered. "Why can’t we go anywhere nice?”

  _My quarters are nice. Peaceful, even._ “Jesus Christ, Vakaryian, don’t _do_ that! I startle easily!”

  “…I…Sorry.”

 “I have an order for you. I’m ordering you to turn your scaly ass around while I radio Joker and _you_ get back to the _Normandy_ under _my_ watch. I nearly lost you once and I absolutely can’t lose my right-hand man. The crew would just fall apart again.” I would fall apart again.  Hurray for managing to be professional under stress. I jabbed my pistol gently in the small of his back. “Start walking, I have shit to do.”

  “But if you need me, I won’t let a cough get in the way of helping you!” he protested as I nudged him toward the docking bay. 

“You are a stupid, stubborn, _impossible_ man!” _And I love you, you bastard._ “Walk! Zaeed, stay put and try to help that human woman get back to her place in the slums.”  
 

“It’s a crying shame, Lily,” he said while we walked back home, “because the other day I was bragging on you to the guys about how sweet you were. Guess I was wrong.”

 Thank God he didn’t turn around and see my burning face—I could feel the heat in my cheeks and hated it. Hated him. For a second.  “Right now, you are.”

 “Hey, you can put the pistol down, that fucking hurts.”

“Shore party to _Normandy_ ,” I said sweetly into my headset.

“…You did something again, didn’t you, Lily?” Joker answered, like he was dealing with an impossible sister who crashed his ship into the home hangar door.  
  

“The velociraptor-cat hybrid with the pole up his ass will be joining you shortly, Jeff. I was just giving you a warning. Make sure he doesn’t do anything stupid, like follow me or break our precious baby or anything. Understood? Send Taylor as a replacement.”

“Aye, aye, Commander,” Jeff sighed. “Sometimes you’re a lot more trouble than you’re worth.”

 “I love you too, Moreau,” I said dryly. “Lily out.”

Garrus opened his mouth. “Um…”

“Not a word, Vakaryian.”

“…So I can keep your flash drive, then?” he purred, smirking at me and pulling out my beloved blue drive from…somewhere in his armor.

I actually dropped my pistol. “How the hell…?”  
 

“You dropped it when we were battling the forces of unspeakable evil two years ago,” he said, like he was commenting on Omega’s decent weather. “I figured it was important to you, so I salvaged it. Might make a good bribe later on, I thought.”

“S-S-So what the fuck d’you want?” I asked, retrieving my weapon just as Taylor ran out of the airlock.

“Shepard? Am I…?”  
  

“Yes, Taylor.”

Garrus just shrugged. “Oh, nothing important to _you_ ,” he said coolly and then grinned. “You’re really quite the writer, you know that? Just the fiction, I didn’t bother with the diary—that might give me the plague just by itself and since neither of us wants me to die…”

“I should shoot you!!” 

"Should you?”

 “Um, Commander… You needed me for something?” Taylor looked and probably felt extremely out of place.

“Yeah, I _do_ , to replace Mr. Knightley over here,” I snarled. “Vakaryian, make like a T-Rex and start running. That’s an order!”  
     

“Okay, okay, _Lily_ , I’m going back to the ship,” he said, my first name slithering off his tongue. He was smirking but I didn’t falter.

“Read a book. Take a shower. I’d tell you to do something girly and get a makeover, but you’re too fucking ugly for that. You’ll have to ease your tension by yourself, I guess.” It slipped out before I knew what I was saying.

“Aww, that _hurts_ ,” Vakaryian said, pretending to get upset.

“Just…Just…go away and do something other than vex me. Please.”

“Deep South human gentility,” he chuckled. “As you wish, then.” He saluted, the airlock door slammed shut and I immediately radioed Joker. 

“Is the cat in the box?”

“Affirmative, cat has entered box,” Jeff sighed.

“Good. I’ll be sleeping ashore this evening while I look for Mordin,” I said, shutting off the headset and turning to Taylor. “Let’s go find Zaeed and crash. I think we all need a nap.”

…But then I woke up hyper this morning and had to write in here. Pray that this doesn’t turn into _Shrek_ or something. We found Mordin, who has a computer database for a brain; he’s more obnoxious and rant-prone than _me_ , so that tells you something. I need to process half of what he says; we have to go in and find his brainiac assistant.

   How do I prepare? With a song about rubber ducks from an old children’s show several centuries old, naturally. You can find Sesame Street online now—public domain and all. That’s a mean saxophone solo, Ernie.

Time to pretend to be a mature, unflappable adult. “Shepard, is that your idea of dancing?” Taylor asked groggily. “What _the fuck_ are you doing?”

“Warming up,” I said cheerily. “Easing tension. Relaxing. Tell Joker and I’ll fire you. You gotta shoot all the duckies, shoot all the duckies…” I sang; I’ve been doing that more lately … Singing, that is, not killing wildfowl. Elmer Fudd always bugged me as a kid...


	8. Putting Out The Fire

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Would you like me to administer sedatives?” Mordin asked; Kelly aptly described him as a hamster on coffee and I agree with her. We’ve gotten acquainted and I like him but for once he made me pissed off. “Frightening. She has a strong aversion to clothing herself in formal female human attire?” he asked Garrus.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, that was my knee-jerk reaction to having to wear a dress at Hock's party.

19 March 2185

Hell, no! I don’t care if it’s part of my job, there is no way I’m going to this little party of Kasumi’s! Especially not in a dress and high heels! Can’t I wear ankle-length boots? I’m too fucking pissed off TO TYPE ANYTHING OF SUBSTANCE. LOOK, I’M USING CAPSLOCK, THAT’S HOW PISSED OFF I AM. I HAVEN’T EVEN TOLD YOU WHO KASUMI IS, HAVE I? WELL, TOO FUCKING BAD FOR NOW. I’VE LIVED WITH A SEVERE DISABILITY BEFORE, NOT TO MENTION ALL MY INJURIES AFTER AKUZE WHEN I COULD WALK NORMALLY. NOT TO MENTION THE REHAB STAYS AND PHYSICAL THERAPY DURING ALL OF THAT. HELL, NO, I AM NOT GOING TO MAKE MYSELF LOOK EVEN MORE AWKWARD THAN I ALREADY AM. I AM NOT BOND GIRL MATERIAL. THAT’S MORE MIRANDA’S STYLE. SHE SHOULD GO INSTEAD OF ME. VESPER IN CASINO ROYALE IS MORE PUT-TOGETHER THAN ME.PLUS JEFF WILL LAUGH HIS ASS OFF—HE KNOWS I HATE DRESSES, PARTIES, SUDDEN HIGH-FREQUENCY SOUNDS, APPLAUSE, PEOPLE AND SOCIAL EVENTS. (Carrie by Stephen King is a book I have in my cabin for a reason.) YES, I’M A STEAMING PILE OF BULLDOZING RAGE, FUCK YOU VERY MUCH.

“I can’t wait to see what you’ll look like in formal wear, Lily,” she said coolly when we met at the Citadel. “I got you an outfit for our little…heist activity.”

“…Wait, what?! WHAT?! Formal wear?!! Oh, _hell no, you fucking bitch_!!!” The passersby were probably wondering why Garrus was restraining me and why I was screaming so loudly.

“Would you like me to administer sedatives?” Mordin asked; Kelly aptly described him as a hamster on coffee and I agree with her. We’ve gotten acquainted and I like him but for once he made me pissed off. “Frightening. She has a strong aversion to clothing herself in formal female human attire?” he asked Garrus.

 

“LET ME AT HER! I’LL SHOW HER A STRONG AVERSION!!!”

“Shepard, calm the hell down!” Garrus yelled. “You’re … Where’s that human stuff she takes?”

“I _am_ right here, Vakariyan, ask me the fucking question!! It’s in my bag, where it always is!”

 

“Come on, Professor,” Garrus called to Mordin, “you gotta help me here. Now, Lily, Shepard, Shepard, we’re gonna go get you some fortification. Non-alcoholic, preferably.” He gently led me along, but I was too angry to enjoy it. There was the whole dress thing; I mean, of course it wasn’t his fault and I was wrong to take it out on him, but _still_.

“Caffeine would be ideal,” Mordin said, weaving along beside us like a pink salmon in a National Geographic special, the ancient, grainy ones from the 1970s. “There is a drink. Earth liquid. Brown. Carbonated. Commonly consumed to cure headaches from its founding to—”

“Coca-Cola,” I interrupted.

“Stay on this bench with the commander; I will fetch the beverage,” Mordin said, dashing off. 

Kasumi was smirking. “See you back at the ship, Shepard.” She disappeared, looking like a Sith Lord from _Star Wars_ while she did so. I had finally calmed down enough to go quiet, as I do after the rare explosion of rage.

“…Damn, girl, you have one hell of a temper for a human,” Vakaryian said softly. “Hey, hey, look at me.”

“Just to be difficult, no,” I snapped. “Where’s Mordin?”

“Coming with the carbonated beverage. What was all that about, hm?”

“I don’t…don’t like certain textures. Tastes. Smells. Sounds. So for Kasumi to get me a dress for this heist thing was really nasty of her.”

“You’d stick out in anything else, though. What do they call that…intolerance on Earth?”

“Sensory integration disorder and hyperacusis. Hyperacusis is an intolerance to sound and...my major trigger is clapping. When I hear it, I'm in severe pain and I get...violent. Bloodthirsty. That's how much pain it puts me in, that it obliterates everything... "

"I...know what it is, Lily."

"Sorry, I'm used to interacting with fucking morons."

"Me too," he said grimly. 

"We can put colonies in space, cure physical disabilities and cancer but we can’t fix something as simple as that. God, Garrus, I’m exhausted.”

“Sleeping is encouraged, y’know.”

“Oh, but then I might never wake up.”

He viciously turned on me. “Don’t _fuck with me_ , Shepard. Don’t joke about shit like that, got it? You can’t fucking throw your life away! You’ve got everything ahead of you. You’re the glue that keeps this ship going—keeps us all going. Without you…Without…”

“Beverage!” Mordin announced happily. He reminds me of the green scientist Muppet with the glasses sometimes. “Cola obtained.”

“Excellent. Come on, Shepard, time to take your medicine and then I insist you get back to the ship. You’ve been going, going, going…”

“Stop, V,” I mumbled as he opened the yellow pill bottle for me. “Quit with the traditional gender role bullshit.”

“Fuck your pride, Shepard, you need help right now, a hot shower and some sleep,” he said. “Kasumi can wait on her memory box bullshit until you’re…better. If you want, I can personally talk to her.”

“Oh, fuck, Garrus, don’t do that thing…” I whined.

“What thing?”

“Don’t carry me back to the ship.”

“Shut up and take your meds for me. You need me and I’m here.”

I obeyed, savoring the soda; I hadn’t had a Coke in two years. “Thanks for getting the Coke, Mordin. Or is it Milo?”

“Mordin, Commander.”

“What am I supposed to do with you guys?” Garrus sighed, picking me up matter-of-factly and carrying me. “Come on, Mordin.” There was spilled soda on my chin.

“Stop that,” I said sleepily. “I don’t approve of this. As your CO…”

“ _You_ ,” he said to me, “close your eyes and sleep. Think of it as avoiding awkwardness; when you wake up, you’ll be in your cabin and we’ll stay put here at the Citadel until you’re better. Goodnight, Lily.”

“Mm, whatever. But I give the orders around here in all but special cases.”

 

At least Vakaryian kept his word because I did actually wake up in my cabin two hours ago. My N7 hoodie was still zipped up and not tampered with—I mean, the last person I’d expect to overstep professional boundaries would be V (for vendetta—har, classic human vid jokes, clever girl. I’m here all day.), but I’m still cautious anyway. I grew up, having been at the mercy of turian doctors, being aware of my vulnerability as a disadvantaged girl with no parents and no money, so I’m edgy even with those I’m close to. Give people the benefit of the doubt and they’ll do emotionally to you what I did to the sergeant: slip a knife into your back, not to cover a loved one’s ass in my case, but because they fucking _can_. 

I can see the leather dress on my bed from here at the desk; Kasumi was courteous enough to leave me a note and a book, an actual book, one of my passions (and apparently Kasumi’s as well—the galaxy is a strange place indeed), on the bed with it. I’d recognize the iconic cover art anywhere, even though I’ve only watched the vid a million times. Summer 1993 release. Cutting-edge computer technology for its time. Created and filmed on Earth. Action plot. Velociraptors. Fucking with science. Directed by the great old master of the Earth film, Steven Spielberg. It was Jurassic Park and The Lost World by Michael Crichton. 

_Lily, Here’s a bribe in exchange for humoring me and wearing the formal wear that one of the crew said you’d take. Joker’s already put in the coordinates for the location of the party we’re infiltrating into the system. Get dressed; we should be landing within the next few hours and rubbing shoulders with the toughest guys in the galaxy. I’ll explain the plan on the way to the surface—just get ready whenever you decide to wake up.  
-Kasumi_

So we’re repeating history and infiltrating what is essentially a Gestapo base, then? _Great_. Like the first time wasn’t stressful enough for the Americans involved… Okay, I admit that the dress is nice and looks comfy but are heels _really_ necessary? _Why_ do I have to wear heels? Why? …Let’s see, Jeff’s in the cockpit and Vakaryian’s probably calibrating something, so hopefully I can avoid both of them…

Fingers crossed. Going to initiate Operation Wildfire now; at least I’m going sans makeup as usual. Silver linings and shit, y’know.


	9. Young Blood

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (Alison Gunn’s my cover name—clearly Kasumi’s been watching too many Daniel Craig James Bond vids.)

20 March 2185  
Current Location: Berkenstein

I was under the impression Kasumi’s partner was strictly professional, but no, he was also her lover. _Great_. Now I’m stuck helping an acquaintance with their love life again. Dictating this into my omni-tool. Hock’s got an impressive library; wish I had the time to really look at it. Dead ringer for John Hurt with a Slavic accent, this guy. I had to come on to him (yuck), he gave a speech, people were…loud and I was in a lot of physical pain. Of course no one noticed me sidle up to one of the security guards afterward. “Hock’s quarters are inaccessible without authorization.”

“I’ve got authorization,” I said.

“Who’s?”

Considering the blistering electric pain I was just in, naturally I was feeling more brutal than usual. “My own.” _Please give me an excuse to empty my pistol into your motherfucking back, please._ “Let me through.”

The guard was, naturally, a smartass, so…I snuck in. Over one of the railings, no less. Hock has the biggest bedroom I’ve ever seen; it makes my _Normandy_ cabin look like a cheap Florida condo. We got his DNA to get in his vault, a voice sample and…of course nothing can be easy. Just _once_ I want help with something; I have to bypass security on a door and of course the damn thing is timed. “Kasumi, can’t you…?”

“You wouldn’t learn anything new if I did that, Alison.” (Alison Gunn’s my cover name—clearly Kasumi’s been watching too many Daniel Craig James Bond vids.)

“Fuck you.”

So now I’m standing outside the door in these stupid heels trying to figure out what to do. Naturally, I’m stressed and sweaty and dying for another Coke. Identifying with Carrie White for some stupid reason.


	10. Come Away To The Water

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Don’t blame you—it needed a better script. The historical bits are spot-on, though. Most of them. They wouldn’t have served lunch in the Palm Court like in the vid—just very light appetizers. Oh, yeah, and Dawson would never have been allowed up in first class and not chummy with Thomas Andrews and the whole flying thing would never happened. Unless Dawson was also a first class passenger, which would’ve made sense, but there’s no logic in twentieth century—”

21 March 2185

I am never going to a party again of my own free will. Ever. Worst experience of my life so far because as bad as Akuze was, at least I was wearing clothes I liked. Hock’s vault, when we finally broke in, was actually pretty cool. “That’s a turian _Titanic_ from what I hear,” Kasumi said casually as we passed by one of the spaceship models.

“Really?!” I asked, as the original _Titanic_ ’s always been a deep historical passion of mine. “What happened to it? Her? Him?”

Kasumi shrugged. “Hell if I know. Hey, there’s Michelangelo’s David. …Wow. Can we get it through the door?”

“Where would we put it? I mean, it’s a great artifact, but it would just take up space…like Ismay felt about necessary things like lifeboats,” I added wryly. “Have you seen the ’97 vid from the twentieth?”

“I fell asleep.”

“Don’t blame you—it needed a better script. The historical bits are spot-on, though. Most of them. They wouldn’t have served lunch in the Palm Court like in the vid—just very light appetizers. Oh, yeah, and Dawson would never have been allowed up in first class and not chummy with Thomas Andrews and the whole flying thing would never happened. Unless Dawson was also a first class passenger, which would’ve made sense, but there’s no logic in twentieth century—”

“There’s the graybox,” hissed Kasumi.

“Hey! I was talking!”

“No, you were going off on a tangent. Moreau told me you’re prone to those.”

“Thanks for the book, by the way.”

“You’re welcome. I figured it’d convince you. You don’t seem the romance novel type.”

I pretended to puke. “ ‘And he thrust his penis into her vagina and they went at it like rabbits for the next four hundred pages.’ It’s the excruciatingly detailed sex that’s the worst. For me. No point.”

“Some people need outlets for their needs, Lily.”

“Hey, more power to you if you like those books; I’m not one to judge. They’re just not my thing.”

“Well, what is your thing, if you have one at all?”

“No one ever asks me that, but now isn’t the time and I don’t know you well enough to talk about it. At all, honestly. I just want to go home, have a drink and pass out.”

“Fair enough.”

So yet again we had to fight our way out—Kasumi actually seems to love putting herself at risk—but thankfully I got to wear my armor this time. Yes, this was important to me, shut up. I was so paranoid by the time Joker sent the shuttle for us that I nearly busted the glass because I thought it was one of Hock’s cronies.

“Lily,” Jeff sighed over the headset, “I sent the shuttle like you told me to.”

“Sorry, adrenaline and paranoia.”

“You really need to fix that.”

“Jeff, I don’t take orders from subordinates.”

“You had no problem doing that with Alenko.”

“Don’t use that against me,” I said, cutting off the headset and scrambling into the shuttle. “Come on, Kasumi, let’s blow this joint.”

“Pardon?” she asked as I helped her in.

“…Never mind.”

Naturally after that fiasco I was drained and exhausted, so I basically sprinted to the elevator so I could change into something comfortable. My hair was a mess but I didn’t care and I decided to go looking for Garrus. I’m usually nervous before I go in the battery to talk with him. _Come on, Lily, this is stupid. It’s not like he’s gonna eat you off a toilet or anything…_

“Oh, Shepard, need me for something?” It was like the whole thing on the Citadel a few days ago never happened. Completely chilly and professional. Well, I can be cold too.

“Got a minute?”

“…Can it wait for a bit? I’m in the middle of some calibrations.”

“I’ll talk to you later, Garrus.” _Hmph. Calibrations. Fine. Be that way. Be a cold prick. See if I care._ Since there was no one in the hallway, no one saw me very maturely stick my tongue out at the battery door. “I guess I’ll just go talk to someone who wants me around, then.” There was still the matter of the graybox to talk about with Kasumi; I found her on the port side, clutching it to her chest. “You okay?”

“Kenji wants me to destroy it; I can’t,” she groaned. “It’s all I have left of him.”

“It’s what he wants,” I said. “Whoever was after him is just gonna target you next and I’m pretty sure Kenji would rather you be safe than have the memories.” And I thought of the Alexander Pope poem—

_Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind!  
Each prayer accepted and each wish resigned…_

 

“Look, I’ll do it if it’ll help,” I said, feeling ashamed of myself for dismissing their relationship last night at Hock’s party. “There’s no way we can save the memories?” I said quietly.

“No, Kenji was very good at encryption.”

“I can do it. I know how painful stuff like this is.”

“But I…oh, hurry and get it over with,” she said, choking up and running from the observation deck. I don’t want to talk about it and I’m pretty sure Kasumi wouldn’t want me to either.

Let me change the subject. We’ve got Mary Shelley’s “hideous progeny” in the cargo hold—a krogan. (Wonder what she’d think of them.) I was… _not_ expecting him to come out swinging like he did when I released him. Pinned me to the wall. _Talk him out of hurting you. Talk him to death._ Somehow I did—his name’s Grunt and he’s a prototype of some kind. Still on edge about him.

I need a Coke.


	11. Fight Like A Girl

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Terrorism is the best political weapon, for nothing drives people harder than a fear of sudden death. Think of the press as a great keyboard on which the government can play. What good fortune for governments that the people do not think…_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...Okay, Mass Effect 2, please stop emotionally paralleling my real life. Seriously, it's uncanny when Garrus has the same tendencies as...someone I know. I didn't write the email at the end; it was in the game, which makes this even more ironic. Enjoy it anyway, you, if you even have time to read this. You just won't leave me alone...and I wouldn't have it any other way. =D Promise.

23 March 2185

Today I took the day off. We’ve recruited this raging ball of tattooed anger named Jack—female—off the prison ship _Purgatory_. The guards kept referring to her as a package, which honestly made me ill. Historical precedent kept flashing through my mind as we walked past cell after cell after cell. Auschwitz. Hitler and Joseph Goebbels. _Terrorism is the best political weapon, for nothing drives people harder than a fear of sudden death. Think of the press as a great keyboard on which the government can play. What good fortune for governments that the people do not think…_

…Unless they’re me, of course, Herr Hitler; thank God you killed yourself so somebody in my position wouldn’t have to. He’d say I tainted my crew by bringing a krogan and a turian along. Bad blood. Infectious. Must be destroyed at all costs. Well, the bastard would have to go through me before he even thought about ripping Garrus or Grunt to shreds. I would have no qualms about emptying my gun into his back. Normally I would, but Adolf Hitler’s an exception. His madness was such that, even though I’m inclined to believe people are inherently decent, I wouldn’t hesitate to kill him.

I also thought of Erin, not as she is now, but when we were kids, and the nightmares she used to have about a fate just like this. She used to go quiet—scarily quiet, because Erin isn’t as serious as me—and then burst into tears. I cried more than Erin back then, so if she was sobbing you knew something was wrong. She always wanted the same thing. “I want Mommy, I want Mommy, I want Mommy.” I figured out pretty early on after we escaped the hospital that we probably weren’t biological sisters, but did I care? Hell, no. She’s my sister.

“Erin, listen, Morgan’s with us and she’s not gonna let anybody shoot us,” I would say, turning on The Eels to help her sleep. _Shrek 2_ , her favorite vid soundtrack and the only CD she owned. “Remember, this place is a tourist trap so the police won’t be as mean. They can’t shoot human kids down here or it’d be bad publicity.”

“Promise, Lily?”

“Promise. I’m hungry, want some ramen?”

“Sure!”

The _Purgatory_ warden was really fucking proud of himself for letting some of the prisoners out of the airlocks as an example. Oh, and he was initially hesitant about letting us in armed. Something about relinquishing our weapons. “I’ll relinquish one bullet—where d’you want it? In your head or your back? Pick one. I’m not surrendering my gun. Period,” I snapped.

“Surely we can handle three armed guests,” a voice said over the intercom.

“Fine,” the guard snapped. “Come on. Your package is in outprocessing.”

 _Oh, we’re referring to people as packages now? How cute._ Every guard we passed seemed to be a turian; the only humans I saw were imprisoned in cells. I thought about Camille, how a brutal policeman beat her in front of me until her knees started bleeding on the cobblestone streets. (They could keep the historical streets, but beating up a defenseless, disabled kid on them was perfectly normal since they were damn sure she’d stolen something. Us vagrant human kids couldn’t be trusted, after all.) Morgan got us out that day, but ever since then Erin developed a terror of authority figures and we’d all force Camille to stay put instead of going out. _Go back to France, you little shit! Can’t trust foreign humans any more than you can these fucking aliens…_

_I stole it! She didn’t! Beat me up, you fucking bastards!_

_We can do worse than beat you up, kid, so you’d better be grateful we’re not tasering you and taking you to jail!_

And then Morgan’s voice. _Lily, Lily, Camille—get the fuck off my family!! Run, Lily, I don’t care how fast you have to go, just run!!!_

_But Camille—_

_I’ll get Camille, hon, you go! Go! Go!_

I wonder what my ancestors would’ve thought if they saw us that day, two white siblings being attacked in broad daylight and being defended by our sister, a girl of color. Prejudice only got worse, not better; it just…changed from something as simple as race. It…went deeper. I can’t explain it; it’s just something you feel in your bones.

Anyway, the prison was…really bad; at least I talked one guard out of torturing a defenseless prisoner. It was small, but it was something; it was the angry twelve-year-old in me that was pissed off. “It’s wrong to kick someone who can’t fight back. This degrades both of you. Stop it now.” I get terse and blunter when I’m pissed off.

I couldn’t see the guard’s expression because he was wearing a helmet. “Call it off,” he hollered to his buddy in the cell. “For now.” As we kept walking I tried not to shake.

“Shepard?” Garrus asked from behind me. “You okay?”

“Yes! Yes! I’m fine!!”

I don’t want to talk about this anymore. I just don’t. Makes me too angry. I wasn’t surprised, by the way, when our gracious host went and turned on us; I knew there was something odd about him letting us stay armed. At least all those years of watching _Alien_ were good for something. “I don’t have time for slave traders!”

“What I do is for the good of the galaxy!”

“Know who also said that?” I hollered as I motioned for Garrus and Grunt to fire. “Darth Vader! Look how he ended up!”

“Shepard, please…” Garrus sighed under his breath. “Just shoot the guy.”

“I’m trying to make a—” _Bang!_ “—Point here, V.”

“Doesn’t matter. Focus and duck. You go down, we all go down so stay alive and _don’t_ play the hero!”

“But I’ll feel guilty if I don’t get a few rounds in!”

“Tough. Take a stand only when a stand—” _Ping!_ “—Must be taken. I won’t tell anyone, so you focus on hiding. For once.”

“Are you _forcing_ me to do something I don’t want to do?!” _Reload, reload, reload…_

 

“No, just offering advice where I can for the hell of it,” he retorted dryly. “Who said I was second-in-command? I care about you, so use your wits and duck.”

“ Really?! Hey, that’s a Loki robot, just like…”

“Not _now_ , Shepard!”

“Would you guys shut up?” Grunt growled. “I’m trying to concentrate so we can actually get out of here in one piece!”

Combat is extremely draining; Jack was easy to reason with once we caught up with her. “Look, this ship’s going down; if you join us, we can get you to safety. I swear all we’re here for is to rescue you.”

She crossed her extremely bony arms over her chest; whatever hair she had was shaved by the guards. There’s something feline in the way she moves. “Fine, but in exchange I want full access to whatever dirt Cerberus has on me. I know they’ve got something.”

 _Easy enough. We’re not with them, so…_ “Done. You get full access. Let’s go.”

Miranda hasn’t been happy about the situation since we got back, but as soon as I got out of the debriefing room I came out here to the port observation deck. “You look terrible,” Kasumi said with a knowing grin when she saw me. “There’s a liquor cabinet over there.” (I only drink alcohol as a proof of my fortitude, not because I like it. It’s actually extremely nasty, but it gives me a buzz during emergencies.) I poured myself a shot, drank it and have been sitting here alternately writing and staring out the window. Let’s check the email…hm.

_Subject: Take care of Garrus  
From: Nalah Butler_

_Commander Shepard,_

_My husband was one of the men serving on Garrus' team. I don't how much Garrus talked to you about what happened. I don't know the specifics myself, only that my husband died in a trap set by those bastard gangs. I know Garrus blames himself; he took every shot fired at his squad as a failure on his part, and it was clear when he sent me the message about my husband that he thinks it was his fault._

_My husband would never have wanted that. He was proud of the work he did on Garrus' squad. He was taking back Omega from the gangs. He died fighting with honor. I miss him. God, I'd give anything to get him back. But whatever happened there wasn't Garrus' fault._

_You're his commander now. Please, if you can, help him stop blaming himself. And please don't tell him that I sent you this. Thank you._

_\- Nalah Butler_

I…hm. I…need to relax for a few minutes after reading that. Poor Garrus… Why doesn’t he fucking _tell me_ these things?!


	12. Now The Rains Weep O'er His Hall

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What’s the point in trying to connect with anyone at all if the only thing they’ll do is kick you in the face?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was blindsided by the fight with Kaidan on Horizon, admittedly. What a complete slap in the face...and I doubt I can forgive him for it. When I started the original Mass Effect, I really liked him but now...eesh. The Mass Effect trilogy in general, in my experience, is excellent for surviving mental illness.

24 March 2185

Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck. Fuck. Kaidan… I’m pretty sure he wants nothing to do with me anymore. I thought… Horizon… Kaidan was there, so I thought everything would be okay… No, I don’t want to talk about the fighting we had to do to find him because we fucking failed anyway; the Collectors took most of the colony and it was MY FUCKING FAULT!!!!!! Stupid little Lily, once Kaidan showed up, was more worried about looking like a pro in front of her squadmates instead of totally breaking down. _Do not kiss me in front of Garrus and Miranda or they’ll never stop teasing me about it… No, Kaidan, no, no…_ I would’ve preferred him kissing me to what _did_ happen.

He held me and fooled me into thinking everything was okay…and then he went off on me, which was worse. “Why didn’t you contact me for two whole years?! I love you! You think doing this to me is okay?!” People being angry with me has always been an emotional trigger, even though my navy training put it on the back burner. I felt like he’d slugged me in the face so I bit back.

“I was _unconscious, you asshole_! How the hell was I supposed to contact you, lovers’ telepathy?! Cerberus was rebuilding my body for, what, the fifth or sixth time in twenty-seven years?! I’m fucking sick of hospitals by now, but it’s thanks to them I’m ali—”

“Oh, I see how it is. You feel like you _owe_ them your life so it’s perfectly okay to betray the Alliance and turn traitor—”

“Kaidan, are you nuts? What kind of bullshit have they been feeding you?! You _know me_! The Alliance is my family and I would never abandon them for Cerberus! I _didn’t have many options_! Put yourself in my shoes for once…assuming you even have the ability to start with!!!” I was too pissed off to cry. “I’m not _with them_!”

“I don’t want to hear your excuses, Shepard.” He was using my last name, to add insult to injury; two years ago it was Lily. _You want some coffee, Lily? I had a great time last night, Lily. Hey, Lily, did you read that science article? Can I talk to you for a minute, Lily?_ Of course…he wanted to do more than just talk to me…and _that_ made me tear up, standing in front of him. “You’ve changed,” he said coldly. _You left your vid player in the mess, Lily…_

 

…Then I remembered Lawson and Garrus were still behind me. “You know I…hate change,” I choked out. “If you could just…” Deep, deep breaths. “…Put your emotions aside for five minutes, we could talk this out. We could use someone with your strengths on the team, we really…”

“Work for Cerberus? Hell, no. I’m sorry, Shepard.”

“Lawson, please reach in Shepard’s bag and get out her anti-anxiety medication…and a swallow of water,” Garrus said quietly.

“YOU BASTARD!!! You’ve never been sorry for _anything_!!” I howled at Alenko’s retreating back. I know they gave me the medicine, but I honestly don’t remember how I got back to the _Normandy_. I wasn’t asleep, I just don’t remember… I was stupid enough to give him everything and he just spits in my face!! Why…? What’s the point in trying to connect with anyone at all if the only thing they’ll do is kick you in the face?

He seemed so genuine, too… I nearly fooled myself into thinking love might be my lot after all. Well, enough with the Disney bullshit; I know better. “Great seeing Alenko again, huh?” Jeff asked me when I poked my head in the cockpit. Obviously Garrus and Miranda hadn’t told him.

“It…didn’t go well. I lost a lot more than time over two years and I don’t need this garbage.” Kelly asked me the same thing as I was headed to the cabin with a cup of English Breakfast tea.

“D’you still have strong feelings for him, if I can ask?”

“What we had is in the past. History.” It was hard to spit it out.

“I’m sorry; I know letting go can be tough.”

“Thank you, Kelly. That’ll be all,” I said with a grim smile.

“Ma’am.”

I hit the elevator button for the crew floor instead on impulse; something was drawing me like a magnet to the main battery. I just had to have Garrus there for a second. “Hey. Got a minute to talk?”

“I’m kind of working at the moment, Commander. Can it wait?”

“Yeah, of course. I don’t want to interrupt.”

“Shepard…”

By then I was already marching back to the elevator and slamming myself in. Since when has anyone given a shit about me _for me_ instead of my accomplishments? One of the first human babies to be cured of the palsy, adult savior of the galaxy, sole fucking survivor of the thresher maw attack… What’s that Thomas Hardy quote about the rabbits from  Tess of the D’Urbervilles? _Rabbits, hares, snakes, rats, mice, retreated inwards as into a fastness, unaware of the ephemeral nature of their refuge, and of the doom that awaited them later in the day when, their covert shrinking to a more and more horrible narrowness, they were huddled together, friends and foes, till the last few yards of upright wheat fell also under the teeth of the unerring reaper, and they were every one put to death by the sticks and stones of the harvesters._

I’ve always loved Hardy for his human characters in the face of absolute darkness. I didn’t ask for any of this, y’know; if anyone isn’t ideal heroine material, it’s me. I also have to face the shame of misjudging Miranda as well—our backgrounds are very similar. Except she has a father and a genetic twin sister she’s never talked much about. Oriana and Erin are close in age… Erin would want me to help, so I’m going to once I get my strength back. It’d be pointless going on a mission with my morale as low as it is right now.

George R.R. Martin was right: Lannisters—and people like them in reality--always do pay their debts.


	13. Welcome To The Human Race

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Chart a course for the Citadel—Garrus needs something.”
> 
> “Yeah, some social skills,” Jeff muttered.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, I finally finished the Shadow Broker subplot so now it's time to get on to the good stuff! The character development stuff.

19 April 2185

I either haven’t had time or I’ve been too depressed to write in here much. Liara got herself a new job; I can’t really say much about it for security reasons. “You should come with me,” I told her. “It’s not quite the same without my entire family being there.” She’d actually just had a breakdown during this conversation so now I was the one giving her a hug. Poor thing, she’s definitely changed too…

“Well, I could come up to the _Normandy_ next time you visit.”

It took about twenty seconds for me to realize the implication. There is Garrus… “That’d be a bad idea…and we talked about this before,” I said gently. “Let’s keep this professional. I really don’t want to hurt you.”

“Oh, no, I…understand.”

“Alenko…fucked me over.”

“He what? Kaidan turned on you?!”  
“I know, it was… Liara, the world just keeps falling out from under my feet and worse, it’s my own fault,” I laughed bitterly. “Who would’ve expected it? He was a _nice guy_.”

“Seemed like one, you mean.”

“Yeah…unfortunately. I have the world record for failed dating attempts.”

“You’ll find someone.”

“Bullshit, no one can stand me once I let them in. Alenko’s proof of that. I…should get going, Liara.”

“Hey, Lily…thanks for everything.”

“Any time.”

“Are you ill? You look a little feverish.”

 _Damn it, Garrus._ “Just…thirsty. Combat wearing me out as usual.” I darted out before T’Soni could ask me anything else. This whole…thing with Garrus is embarrassing, whatever it actually is, and I never have time to think about it when we’re on the job…usually. Today was a bit different, so let me explain. As usual when I first take command of the deck I went looking for him. In the battery.

…Lily Marie Shepard, get your mind out of the gutter. No, really, you need to get your mind out of the gutter now. We actually almost ran right into each other like in a Jane Austen adaptation. _Pride, Prejudice and Really Awkward Interactions, coming soon to BBC One!_ “Shepard! I’ve been meaning to talk to you! You remember that bastard Sidonis who betrayed my squad?”

“Of course!” _Because I am an idiot and I remember everything you say. For some reason._ It came out more cheerily than I intended. “Why?”

“I’ve got a lead on him—any chance we could visit the Citadel?”

“Sure!”

“This isn’t a pleasure trip, Shepard.”

“I know, but I love it when you’re on the top…of my priority list.” _What the fuck are you doing, Shepard?! Why do you say stupid shit like that, why--?_

“Ah—um…”

“Bye! Grab your guns and suit up; we can do the relay jump after we refuel.” Unintentional innuendo everywhere…and my mind isn’t normally a dirty place to be, which made all this even weirder. I locked myself in the bathroom, sponged my face with warm water and went off to look for Jeff. “Chart a course for the Citadel—Garrus needs something.”

“Yeah, some social skills,” Jeff muttered. Then a little louder, “Right away, Lily. You’ll do anything for this guy, won’t you?”

“No!!! I have standards and limits and you sure as hell don’t need to know what they are.”

“Shepard, Jeff needs to stop tweaking the data,” EDI broke in.

“It’s harmless and it makes us look good.”

“Harmless stuff, EDI,” I said. “Relax once in awhile.” As I left the cockpit I added, “Jeff, stop flirting with the AI.”

“She’s too damn annoying to flirt with!”

“Mr. Moreau…” I didn’t hear the rest of what she said. A few hours later we docked at the Citadel and were on Sidonus’s trail right away. I love big cities but they’re definitely a pain in the ass to navigate in.

“Sometimes I hate having to walk everywhere,” I said as Mordin, Garrus and I stopped for (non-alcoholic) drinks and ramen.

“You could always ask Garrus to transport you again,” Mordin pointed out.

“Not fast enough or very practical.”

“Hey!” Garrus objected, stabbing at his ramen.

“What, V? It’s not! I just tell the truth!”

“You’re too honest for your own good, Shepard.”

“When you spend most of your life hiding, you want someone to…know who you are. Hey, Mordin, do you eat computers for breakfast?”

The doctor looked affronted. “I absolutely _do not_ ingest central processing units—”

“I think Shepard was trying to be funny, Doctor,” Garrus interrupted. “Come on, guys, the sooner we find this bastard the better. I’m not holding back anything.”

…And, as usual, V kept his word. We fought our way into the warehouse he took us to—what, you thought they’d politely let us in?—and ran into Harkin, of all people. Apparently he got tired of C-Sec and Garrus…well, he was pissed off and…

He was really fucking impressive. I’ve never seen him that upset before and all I could do—when I wasn’t doing my job—was stare in awestruck wonder like a complete idiot. Thankfully, Mordin doesn’t pick up on these stupid human things we tend to do. I swear I thought Garrus was going to kill Harkin. “Giving out client information is bad for business,” Harkin snapped.

“Know what’s also bad for business?” The crunch of his boot on Harkin’s throat and… “A broken neck.” I felt my stomach plummet in the most exciting way possible when he said that. _God, this man is amazing. Hello, Lily, job, combat, combat, focus…_ My hands were sweaty as Garrus proceeded to shoot Harkin in the knee. Anti-climatic, I know, but it got the job done.

“You’re really lucky, man,” I said casually…or as casually as I could. “I would’ve gone for your head, not the knee.”

“You bastards,” Harkin spat.

“Sidonis had better be where you say he is or I’ll be back to finish the job.”

…I _might_ have switched my MP3 player to Handel’s Hallelujah Chorus as we left the warehouse. What? …What? I thought it was fitting! And I only like the initial choral bit, anyway. “Mordin, you might want to get back to the _Normandy_ —Garrus just needs me for this.” So that was how I wound up alone in a cab with Garrus driving, though it didn’t end the way you’re thinking. For one thing, both of us were coming down from the usual adrenaline rush that happens in combat, I was tired and Garrus was obviously feeling thoughtful.

“He deserves to die. Think about it, Shepard. What would you do if someone betrayed you?”

“Don’t ask me that—you know how many people have?”

I felt his catlike gaze studying me. “One too many?”

“…Yeah.” I was staring very intently at my knees.

“Sorry about…” It was clear he couldn’t express himself as well as he’d like. “Sorry about…Alenko.”

“You’re blameless; that whole thing wasn’t your fault. It was mine. I should’ve known better.”

“It’s not right for anyone to treat another person the way he treated you on Horizon. That was…” He made a specifically Garrus grunt of frustration and the heat flared in my cheeks. “Anyway, about what I said before…what would you do if someone betrayed you?”

“Well…” I leaned back thoughtfully in my seat. “It depends on who was doing the betraying, why they did it and the circumstances…but I wouldn’t let it change me.”

“Mm.”

“Don’t worry, I won’t bring it up again. Some incurably evil people deserve to die.”

“You ready?”

“As ready as I’ll ever be.”

“Keep the bastard talking and I’ll signal you when he’s in my sights.”

“Got it. I care about you when you get upset like this, you know.”

“…Thank you. Not that I’m surprised, just…”

“That doesn’t surprise you?”

“You care about people. I do as well.”

“Unless they hurt you.”

He nodded grimly.

“And any bastard who does will have to answer to me.”

“Ah—uh… Let me go get in position. Thanks, Lily.”

This is probably going to sound wrong, but…he’s really good with a gun. …He is! Shot Sidonis clean through the back, and at long-range too! …I’m going to go see if he’s okay, actually.

 

…Wow. I’m sorry, what just happened? He…I…asfdjklp So we’re sitting there in the battery and we get around to talking about the suicide mission, which leads to him telling me about how turians let off steam before a battle. Full-contact sparring—a turian _Fight Club_ , I guess. (Great classic vid—should probably watch it again.) It’s supervised and kind of strange, coming from Earth, but it makes a lot of sense in context. Works off tension, nerves…

Anyway, so he’s telling me about him and this scout and how they sparred nine times. It was a draw, so… “We wound up having a tiebreaker in her quarters.” _Oh, a tiebreaker, that makes sense because it was a draw, but…wait. Her quarters?!_ “I had reach, but she had, ah, flexibility.”

“Listen, if you have…tension I could help you get rid of it.”

“Didn’t think you’d feel like sparring, Commander.”

“…Not that kind of sparring. Y’know,” I said, “we could…skip right to the tiebreaker and test your reach and my flexibility and the doctors always complimented me on how flexible I was in the hospital, so…” Attempting to be sultry just doesn’t work for me, does it? No. I did smirk, though.

“I…uh…oh. Didn’t know you had a weakness for men with scars.”

“I have plenty of my own.”

“Touchè. Why the hell not? There’s no one in the galaxy I respect more than you.” Let’s pause a second and emphasize that. _There’s no one in the galaxy I respect more than you. Yes, yes, say it again, Garrus, louder, again…_ What? I’m only being honest about the utter incoherence going through my mind at the time. _Really?!!!_ “If we can figure out a way to make it work, then… _yeah, definitely_.” Was he…purring? Whatever, I’m just liquid in his hands.

 _Not going to swoon, not going to swoon, I am going to get out of this room with my dignity in one—Oh, my God, oh, my God, YES, YES, YES, YES!!!_ I got about halfway down the hall before my knees buckled and I hit the floor. Now I have bruises on my knees, ow, ow, ow. At least he won’t see them…

How did I manage it? No, really, how? THIS IS AWESOME!!!!


	14. Looking For Yourself

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Personally, I think you should go for it—a lot of people want to see you two together.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I swear the game throws this stuff at me to catch me off-guard.
> 
> Also, yes, so excited for Mass Effect: Andromeda!

2 July 2185

Hey, my birthday’s coming up…assuming… Never mind. I’m irritated every time I come in here to work because Kaidan’s photo is to the left of my laptop and looking at it hurts. It’s now facedown on my desk—I’m so damn tired of trusting people unless they prove themselves like Garrus has over and over again. We’re going to hell in about a month or so and…yeah, I’m fucking terrified.

I couldn’t save Thane’s son and it’s plunged him into serious depression; now he just sits in the mess with a mug of coffee when we’re not on assignment. Every failure I make cuts deep—Thane’s resigned himself to his fate with a lot more coolness than I would have in his situation. I don’t…want to think about death. Tolkien was right: All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us. I’m almost done with The Fellowship of the Ring, though the second half does drag a little bit. Or I could be biased because Faramir doesn’t show up until the next book and he was always my favorite male character in the trilogy…

Wrex is doing well for himself—we happened to bump into each other yesterday and I was so excited to see him. He’s clan chief now and keeping the krogan on T…T…T…Whatever…in line. Grunt was having some kind of trouble so even though Mordin and I had just visited, I insisted we go back; he was accepted into Wrex’s clan as an adult krogan. Turns out he was just going through his adolescent stage. “Can’t we just go to Omega and buy him a few dances?” Garrus muttered and I didn’t feel too bad about stomping on his foot. “Fuck, Lily, ow, ow, ow!”

I was admittedly trying not to laugh. “Don’t you know nothing’s ever that simple, V?”

“…I guessed as much.”

We had to go through the Rite, which involved surviving a thresher maw attack for (mercifully) five minutes. I would’ve had flashbacks if it had been any longer; the blood, the pain… It sears through me like fire when I think about it. Rachel screaming for her dog and her dad, her detached arm just a few steps away from us. “Daddy! Sammy, goddamn it! Sammy!” It mowed us down that day without a second thought. “The fucker’s hurting me!!!”

“I know, Rainy, I know—MICHAEL, MOVE YOUR ASS OVER HERE! I NEED SOME HELP!!!”

“Working on it, Li—“ He was dead before he finished his sentence. They’re naming the memorial there after me, which kind of makes me uncomfortable; I don’t want to remember Akuze _ever again_ , so why the fuck does everyone keep bringing it up?!!! Seriously!

“Garrus really likes you,” Kasumi told me when I came out here on the port observation deck to write. “Personally, I think you should go for it—a lot of people want to see you two together.”

“…What?!” I just kind of stared at her. _Was I really not that subtle?_ “…What?!”

“Don’t give me that bullshit, Lily. I’ve seen the way you look at him!”

“Yes, but _he_ doesn’t…”

“I read his extranet journal.”

“So?”

“So he’s really shy about you. That means he likes you—said you had a good attitude and were a really sweet person.”

“That’s not a Garrus thing to say.”

“Exactly. Means he’s fond of you.”

“Ah… Um. Do you have any…books on sexual education? I need at least one.”

“Can’t you use vids?”

“…I prefer reading.”

“Sure. Are we talking specifically human—?”

“Yes. Yes, we are. Now give me the books so I can get out of here!”

“You guys are—”

“Shut up.”

But seriously, how do they know?!! Argh!


	15. Clawing Upward

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kaidan turned on me once; who’s to say down the line that he couldn’t do it again?

6 July 2185

Kaidan sent me an apology email and the guilt’s just come back in a tidal wave. _Do you even remember that night before Ilos?_ As if I couldn’t… He’s just hurting me again. You don’t…You don’t…You don’t do that to people if you love them. Putting the pieces together right now breaks my heart. Garrus is…dependable and never yells at me, which is something I appreciate more than I can say. Kaidan turned on me once; who’s to say down the line that he couldn’t do it again?

…I need a coffee.


	16. Ship To Wreck

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You know how scared I am, right?” I admitted as I crawled into bed with Garrus, blankly staring at the fish in my aquarium. “I just keep failing over and over again…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi, whoever might be reading this. I completed Mass Effect 2 today and from here on out, my updates will be sparse so I can get the best ending for Mass Effect 3 possible. Going with the Destroy ending, need to complete all the sidequests and get my hands on the Extended Cut.
> 
> I want a happy ending and I'm going to get it, damn it. See you guys in 2016; I'm going to wait and play the third one closer to when Mass Effect: Andromeda is released.

8 July 2185

Thank God for Mordin; he was sweet and helped me with some much-needed medical advice. The suicide mission was a success…but not all of us came back. We lost a lot of great people in the line of duty: Thane, Jack, Jacob and Kasumi. It happens after every mission, the thought process: _I should have been more cautious, I should have, I should have, I should have…_ I invited Garrus up here when we could get some quiet—I mean, the Normandy is pretty quiet since… It’s just weird: I…went to the port deck just to get a drink and…Kasumi wasn’t there anymore. I’ve quietly taken possession of all her books, don’t know what to do with everyone’s…

“You know how scared I am, right?” I admitted as I crawled into bed with Garrus, blankly staring at the fish in my aquarium. “I just keep failing over and over again…”

“You’re stronger than you give yourself credit for, Lily. We wouldn’t have got out of there if it wasn’t for you.”

“I don’t know what Anderson was thinking,” I answered in a choked voice. “The navy was just the quickest way I could think of to get out of Florida, I really can’t lead…”

“You have a good attitude…and you’d be surprised how many humans don’t have that,” he said, threading his…fingers, talons, whatever through mine. “Don’t just default to crediting the rest of us.”

“Look, V, if there’s going to be a war I intend to survive it and then we go to Hawaii and hide there the rest of our lives.” I buried my face in his neck and wrapped my arms around him. “Every time I think I’m happy, it just blows up in my face. People abandon me too much and this is really, really, really fucking stupid but I don’t want you to be like the rest of them and go. Or die on me, if you even _think_ of dying on me I’m going to be so pissed off…”

“Did you take your medicine, Lily?” he asked me gently.

“Of course I took it; it’s why I’m angry and not crying my eyes out. Crying is useless.”

“Your face looks like it’s healing up nicely,” he said, examining the scars on my left cheek.

“I don’t remember how I got those…”

“Well, that’s ‘cause you haven’t gotten a full eight hours of sleep yet.”

“Don’t go when I do fall asleep.”

“Don’t worry, I won’t.”

I’m so scared about what’s coming next…


	17. The Day They Arrived

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An entire colony’s blood is on my hands and…well…might as well go back to Earth. Wear my dress blues and face the music. Can’t focus on the fact that I killed 30,000 people. Way too jumpy. Hackett wasn’t happy, but he rarely seems to be when he’s spoken to me lately. Weird seeing him in person, too.

11 March 2186

…Well, I didn’t see the kidnapping coming. Not by a long shot. An entire colony’s blood is on my hands and…well…might as well go back to Earth. Wear my dress blues and face the music. Can’t focus on the fact that I killed 30,000 people. Way too jumpy. Hackett wasn’t happy, but he rarely seems to be when he’s spoken to me lately. Weird seeing him in person, too.

See you on the other side of the war.


	18. Leaving Earth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> FUCK EVERYTHING!!!! EVERY SINGLE FUCKING THING.

13 March 2186

You just watched a kid get blown to bits right in front of your face. How do you feel about war now, huh? I want out of this galaxy. FUCK EVERYTHING!!!! EVERY SINGLE FUCKING THING.

…I love you, Garrus. Don’t die on me, goddamn it!!!


	19. I'm Only Human, After All

14 March 2186

 

I spoke to Morgan today on vidcom and lost it. Just sobbing in the tech lab all over the place. “Aww, honey…” Morgan said when she saw me.

“I hate this f-f-fucking war!!! A civilian kid died on my watch…and I hate kids!!!” _You can’t help me, you can’t help me, you can’t…_

“Hon, you can’t save them all.”

“Well, we should!! Without the navy, that could’ve been us!”

“Lily, take a deep breath. Take a deep…”

“Sorry.”

“Don’t ever apologize, you hear me? When you get off vidcom, go and take your meds.”

“Did Erin get out? Off Earth?” I asked, wiping my eyes.

“Yeah, she and her husband were heading somewhere safe the last time I spoke to them. Thank God I was with my fleet when they attacked, otherwise—”

“Don’t fucking talk like that, d’you hear me?!!” I snapped. “I’m not losing my sisters to this Reaper bullshit! It is, you know, that’s all it is! Bullshit!”

“We’re soldiers, sweetie. We’ve got to protect who we can.”

“I want four people alive at the end of the war: me, you, Garrus and Erin.”

“Still into the turian, huh?”

“…Maybe a little, yeah.”

“You’re cute. Palavan’s taking a beating,” Morgan said a little more seriously. “Does he have family there?”

“His dad and sister are down there. I think he calibrates things to take his mind off of it.”

“Great,” Morgan laughed, “so I’ve got turian in-laws everywhere I turn these days. Does he treat you well?”

“We’re not married _yet_ , Christie.” Christina’s her middle name so sometimes I use that.

“Aw, just wait till this war’s over…”

“I can’t think like that, Morgan. One wrong move and…and… The nightmares are coming back.”

“Don’t push yourself too hard, hon.”

“I’m not going to.”

“How’d you get the bloody nose?”

“Vega, my lieutenant, asked me to dance,” I said, wiping my nose with a Kleenex. “I forget who won.”

“Well, sis, I’d better get back to it. Stay safe, Commander.”

“Morgan…I love you.”

“Love you too, hon. If anyone’s got a chance at saving us, it’s you.”

“No pressure, huh?” I asked, choking up.

“None at all. Shepard out.”

…And I broke down again.


	20. Maybe Somewhere Sunny

21 March 2186

The unthinkable happened.

We lost Mordin today.

We lost Mordin today.

Mordin. If this war can take Mordin… Jesus. “I would’ve liked to run tests on the seashells.” He was…smiling…when he went up the elevator, singing, like there was no war going on. Fuck. Fuck. And I made that call. I let him fucking die to save the krogan, but WHY CAN’T YOU FUCKING SAVE EVERYONE?!!!! WHY NOT?! WHY NOT?! IT SHOULDN’T BE LIKE THIS, GODDAMN IT! FIRST THE KID, THE KID DYING—THAT HAPPENS IN WAR, BUT…MORDIN!!! I’M SORRY!

“Someone else might have gotten it wrong.”

 _I am the very model of a…_ scientist salarian.

I need a nap. Maybe a couple of shots of vodka too.


	21. And Grace Will Lead Me Home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “No one else is dying, do you understand me?! I want a constant watch on our war assets and I don’t care if I have to be someone’s errand bitch to get them, we’re going in prepared.”

27 March 2186

I’m sorry, Haley—they assigned me a new therapist in Vancouver—but the other night I got totally hammered in Purgatory. Blacked out and fell asleep on one of the club benches—I think Aria got me out, not sure. The nightmares have been getting bad; what the fuck d’you expect me to do but drink? Bloody Marys go down easily, at least. “Could you _please_ stop staring at that thing, V?” I asked Garrus this morning, trying to not choke up while he looked at the memorial wall.

“Did you get some shut-eye like I told you to?”

“Yeah. Christ, V, why’d it have to be Mordin?”

“Lily, you can’t have a breakdown every time something like this happens.”

“I know, it’s just…”

“Please take your meds.”

"How sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me…” I sang under my breath. “I once was lost, but now am found, was blind, but now I see…” I cleared my throat. “Amazing Grace by John Newton. Old human song. They…played it…once, a long time ago, and it’s just been stuck in my head since…”

“Go get a frappe—whatever that is that you like,” Garrus interrupted me, resting a hand on my shoulder. “You need it.”

“Not yet,” I said, slipping into his arms. “Can you make it stop? Just make it stop… Why the fuck does everything keep going wrong?”

“Don’t go aggressive just because of what happened to Mordin,” Garrus said while I leaned forward and traced the letters on Mordin’s nameplate. “Like I said, Shepard, clear-headedness is key; take as much time as we need.”

“No one else is dying, do you understand me?! I want a constant watch on our war assets and I don’t care if I have to be someone’s errand bitch to get them, we’re going in prepared.”

“…That sounds more like my girl. So, what’s our next move?”

“Three thousand and a hundred. We’ll need that much if we’re going to get out of this alive.”

“We _are_ getting out of this alive.”

“Now you’re talking.”

“Go take your meds, okay?”

“I love you, Garrus.”

“You’re not the most subtle about it…”

“Don’t remind me,” I retorted as I went to the mess hall to fix my drink. Kind of drained emotionally right now…


	22. Love Doesn't Discriminate

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You need to stop listening to that ham thing. I’ve never eaten ham,” Garrus mused, settling back into bed.

28 March 2186

I’m still not over Mordin’s death—it’s… I feel wrong to be stuck in this place. We should be… I should be…but we still do nothing because I’m fucking terrified. 

I’ve been listening to—as cheesy as it sounds—a historical musical from the twenty-first about America’s founding fathers; I only listen to historical musicals. One of the songs that Aaron Burr sings has just been on repeat as I shuffle from the mess to my cabin and back again.

 _Death doesn’t discriminate  
Between the sinners and the saints  
It takes and it takes and it takes  
And we keep living anyway  
We rise and we fall  
And we break  
And we make our mistakes  
And if there’s a reason I’m still alive  
When everyone who loves me has died  
I’m willing to wait for it  
I’m willing to wait for it_  
-Hamilton Original Broadway Cast Recording [all the way back in…2016—they’ve done a revival with an alien cast since]

And all I’m thinking, listening to these songs from a hundred years ago is, _Even the founding fathers are telling me that I can’t fuck this up. Talk about pressure._

…Oh.

Fuck.

Mordin would love this album.

He loves--

He loved musicals.

HOW MUCH MORE AM I GOING TO HAVE TO TAKE?!! SERIOUSLY, HOW MUCH?!! I heard Ash last night… I swear I heard Ash…. “Shepard…Shepard…”

“I’ll fix it! Just… Ash…” The forest again. I always dream about the forest…and I heard Mordin.

“Ran tests on the seashells, Shepard…”

“Where are you guys? I can fix this! I’ll fix this! I’ll—”

I woke up, thankfully, in Garrus’s arms; I’ve been so fragile emotionally that I don’t feel safe unless we’re together at night. “Bad dream, you?” he asked groggily, nuzzling into my neck.

“Yeah…again. I’m going to marry you when this is all over, y’know.” I pulled my N7 jacket closer over my nightshirt. “Somebody’s got to make this stop, the ruthless calculus of war… I never was good at math,” I said, slipping out of bed to feed the fish.

“Come back to bed.”

“That would be enough,” I sang quietly and the reference just flew right over Garrus’s head. “It’s not enough…” I sighed.

“You need to stop listening to that ham thing. I’ve never eaten ham,” Garrus mused, settling back into bed. “Come back to bed, Lily.”

“I can’t, Garrus!” I said, choking up. “People are dying out—”

“Hey, hey, not in here they aren’t.” I suddenly felt his breath on my neck. “Come back to bed and stop crying. My girl doesn’t cry. I want you to feel good, Lily, come on…”

“You have the most beautiful collarbone I’ve ever seen, Vakarian.”

“Still trying the blushing thing, huh?” he asked as I wrapped my legs around him. “Oh, Shepard…”

“This is a great idea, V,” I said before impulsively kissing the scarred side of his face.

“Cross-species sex is always a great idea,” he said, running his talons gently up my left thigh once we were back on the bed.

“I can’t ingest, y’know,” I giggled.

“I know, I read the info Mordin left us. Now let’s see the great commander go down on the bed…”

“…And she’s going with great enthusiasm!!”

“That’s my girl.”

“I’ve been yours since the beginning! Now hurry up and get my nightshirt off!”

He knows how to use his tongue, that’s for sure!!!

…Let’s pretend I didn’t write that, okay?


	23. The Larks, Still Bravely Singing, Fly

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She’s fucking alive, and that’s really all I can ask for.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, the war's over.
> 
> I'm honestly humbled that so many of you enjoyed this; it was a joy to play the trilogy and it'll be a joy to play Mass Effect: Andromeda. Thank you, honestly.

9 June 2186

 

This is Garrus. The war is finally over; Lily’s sleeping soundly in the infirmary bed next to me. I found her in the Citadel rubble, clinging to Captain Anderson’s dead hand. I don’t know what the hell happened, but…she did it. She’s fucking alive, and that’s really all I can ask for. EDI is dead, but Lily insists she can be rebuilt. “Garrus, I shot David,” she kept saying deliriously as we brought her on board the Normandy. “I shot David, I fucking shot David, the Illusive Man made me…”

“Shh, Shepard, shh. It’s over. It’s all over. You don’t have to fight anymore.”

“I don’t know what that’s like, Garrus,” she admitted weakly.

“Well, it involves places that are warm and tropical…”

“Not Florida, I hope,” Lily interrupted wryly. “The humidity alone can kill you faster than any Reaper.”

“Joker’s set a course for Oahu, actually, so you can recover in style and then we’re getting married. You do still want to get married, right?”

She laughed for the first time since London. “I wouldn’t have it any other way. You told me to come back alive, after all. I love you, Garrus.”

“Oh, I know.”

So we're married now and...everyone else can go to hell. We'll get through this. We always do.


End file.
